


One of the Dead

by michmak



Series: The Wizard of Odd, and other stories [14]
Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michmak/pseuds/michmak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past is never really past</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This is very short, because it leads into the next piece. The song at the end (linked to YouTube) is a bridge between the two pieces. The next story will be posted tomorrow.

Prompt: 014 – The Past (list 2)  
Word Count: 204  
Progress: 14/100

The past is never really past. It's something Mal has learned the hard way and something he has come to accept.

He remembers the name of every soldier under his command; every man that died who would have lived if they hadn't been left to rot in Serenity Valley for two weeks after the fighting had stopped.

In his nightmares, he is still there with them – one of the dead.

Serenity Valley had changed him. Like the mythical phoenix, he'd been reborn in the fire – forged by hatred and pain into something other than a man. He'd left his belief there. He'd left his soul there. He'd left his heart there.

He didn't think he'd ever want them back either. There was no use believing, when the God you believed in could so easily abandon you in the Valley of Death.

There was no use in having a heart, when loving only brought you pain. If it wasn't the pain of betrayal, it was the pain of your heart breaking when you had to write another letter to another mother. _...Your child is never coming home..._

And souls were only for the living.

He'd buried himself with his fallen comrades.

He'd never left Serenity.

**Author's Note:**

> [ **The Grave** ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe6j0JBwEO4&feature=related)
> 
> _Don McLean_
> 
> The grave that they dug him had flowers  
> Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,  
> And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone -  
> He's gone.
> 
> When the wars of our nation did beckon,  
> A man barely twenty did answer the call.  
> Proud of the trust that he placed in our nation -  
> He's gone -  
> But eternity knows him, and it knows what we've done.
> 
> And the rain fell like pearls on the leaves of the flowers  
> Leaving brown, muddy clay where the earth had been dry.  
> And deep in the trench he waited for hours,  
> As he held to his rifle and prayed not to die.
> 
> But the silence of night was shattered by fire  
> As guns and grenades blasted sharp through the air.  
> And one after another his comrades were slaughtered.  
> In morgue of marines, alone standing there.
> 
> He crouched ever lower, ever lower with fear.  
> "They can't let me die! They can't let me die here!  
> I'll cover myself with the mud and the earth.  
> 'Ill cover myself! I know I'm not brave!  
> The earth! the earth! the earth is my grave."
> 
> The grave that they dug him had flowers  
> Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,  
> And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone -  
> He's gone.


End file.
